


What Can Go Wrong

by sister_dear



Series: How to Thrive in a Radioactive Wasteland [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Disabled Character, Gen, specifically somewhat detailed descriptions of killing feral ghouls, very brief appearance of F!Sole/Cait
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 14:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6662653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_dear/pseuds/sister_dear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The subway tunnel is dark, narrow, and likely crawling with even more ferals than they’ve already encountered in the upper portion. Ada glares into the flickering lights and the deep, wavering pits of black that they create. “Mac, you’re behind me. Cait, on our six.”</p><p>(Ada, Mac, and Cait encounter some feral ghouls in a subway tunnel.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Can Go Wrong

The subway tunnel is dark, narrow, and likely crawling with even more ferals than they’ve already encountered in the upper portion. Ada glares into the flickering lights and the deep, wavering pits of black that they create. “Mac, you’re behind me. Cait, on our six.” It’s a formation they’re getting good at. MacCready picks off the farthest foes while Ada takes anything that gets close and Cait cleans up what’s left. They set off without any further chitchat. They aren’t trying to sneak around, but there’s no point in making unnecessary noise either. The ferals will find them soon enough.

The first one crawls out of a shadowy pile of rubbish right at Ada’s feet. She stabs it through the chest before it’s finished rising, but there’s more movement in her peripheral vision.

The feral has friends. 

Lots of friends. 

Mac’s gun goes off, loud in the echo chamber of the subway tunnel even with wads of cloth stuffed in their ears. (A calculated risk: the slight advance warning of unimpeded ears versus the hearing loss too many of these unsuppressed indoor shots will most definitely cause.) He picks off three in quick succession before one slips through, giving Ada something to do. She swings into motion, every swipe of her sword controlled and powerful. 

They’re nearly through the first wave when a whole new group comes pouring out of the tunnel ahead, summoned by the noise. Ada’s yell goes unheard as Cait starts in too, flat boom of her shotgun adding its voice to the rifle’s sharper cracks, more ferals coming out of side tunnels to hit their rear. Ada slices the legs out from under one. Blocks a swipe at her eyes with her bad arm, finishes that one off with a long upwards slash. Stabs the next and kicks it free when her blade lodges between the ribs. Her blood thunders in her ears, heartbeat pounding, gunshots echoing. The blood and gore are nearly indistinguishable amid the rancid muck beneath her boots. She yells again as the next wave of them charges over the fallen bodies of their brethren, actually hears herself this time in the worrying gap left by an unexpected reduction of noise. 

Mac has stopped firing. 

The next three ferals hit her at once. She catches two, one with her blade, kicks the other, but she can’t intercept the one Mac ought to have picked off before it got this close and it charges right by her. The shotgun still booms, the rapid one-two beat that is as fast as Cait is capable of firing, no help there. She dispatches the second of her two, whips around with bloody fury making a tunnel of her vision, is just in time to see Mac bashing the feral’s face in with the butt of his gun. It trips him up as it falls and he’s dead, he’s dead, because he goes down with it. The gun is still in his hands, good instinct at any other time but he’s on the ground and still not firing and if he doesn’t get to his feet this instant every feral in the place is going to hone in on wounded prey. 

Motion on her bad side. Flesh that rotten shouldn’t be able to move so fast, gnarled fingers extended like claws and what remains of its teeth bared. She spins. Decapitates it. The head bounces of Mac’s shoulder. His legs are tangled with the one he killed. There’s no time to stop or help him up. She howls like a thing possessed, slices through three more. Trying to buy him time. They’re getting around her. 

Mac surges to his feet at her side, sidearm in hand and firing a rapid crack-crack-crack. The pistol needs three shots to his rifle’s one, but with a third weapon back in the fray and the feral numbers dwindling they finish them off with relative ease. Cait takes the last one point blank, dancing to the side in an attempt to avoid soiling her boots any further as it collapses at her feet and complaining when she fails to get out of the way of the spatter.

Ada rounds on MacCready before the body is finished falling. She has a solid six inches on him, at least twice his weight in muscle, and puts every bit of it to use as she looms over him. “What the hell happened?”

“Give me a minute,” he snaps back. He takes off his hat, slaps it against his leg to dislodge a trailing bit of something putrid, shoves it back down on his head. There’s still a bloody patch. It’s going to stain unless they happen upon a jug of vinegar down here. He continues to ignore her as she fumes, picking up his gun, pulling out the thin rod he uses for cleaning. Muzzle aimed at a high angle that won’t hit any of them with a mis-fire, he cycles the bolt back and slides the rod down the barrel. 

A bullet falls out of the barrel. It sinks into the muck as Ada stares and Cait curses. 

“Wasn’t any powder in the round,” Mac explains, though by this point the two women have both caught on. 

“Where did you get those?” Ada’s voice is low and dangerous. If he hadn’t noticed, if he’d fired again with the bullet still lodged in the barrel- He could have lost his hands. Or worse. At the very least he’d have destroyed the gun. Phantom pains roll up the stump of her left arm. She resists the urge to clutch at a limb that isn't there. Cait comes up next to her, puts her hand over Ada’s white-knuckled grip on her sword. 

“Lucas,” Mac says, answering her question.

“Hey!” Cait shouts as Ada whips around, tearing free of her loose grip. “Ada, damnit!” She jogs forward to block Ada’s path, plants her hands on Ada’s shoulders and her feet apart, staring Ada in the eye. 

Ada glares. “Move.”

“I believe I was telling you just the other day about my experience with teaching people lessons, Ada.” And when that doesn’t work, “We don’t even know where he is!”

“Lucas doesn’t make his own bullets,” Mac adds, coming up alongside them. His eyes dart in quick glances between their faces. “He just resells whatever people trade.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ada growls. Someone has to pay here. Cait and Mac share a look. It’s the ‘I can’t believe I have to be the reasonable one,’ look. 

“Look, can we just finish the job? I want to get paid.” Mac complains, pulling away to start back in the direction they were originally going.

“What he said,” Cait agrees. “No one’s hurt, right? So it’s fine.” She raises her eyebrows, silent question.

“…Alright. Fine.”

Cait grins, reels herself in for a quick smack on the lips that Ada returns. Ada pulls away before they can get too distracted, spins around to yell at Mac’s retreating back. “But the subject is not dropped!” 

He flaps his hand at her over his shoulder, a wordless ‘yeah, yeah.’ Cait snorts. “Best not let him get too far ahead. Our luck, he’ll trip over a deathclaw.”

“Save me some trouble,” Ada states, not bothering to keep her voice down. Mac flips her the bird.


End file.
